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Beach clean launches £20,000 partnership

24 July 2018

You helped persuade Morrisons to act on Ghost Gear (deadly lost fishing lines and nets) and now their charity, the Morrisons Foundation, is giving £20,000 to clear Ghost Gear from the sea and beaches in Cornwall and Devon.

The money will go to our partners Fathoms Free, a group of volunteer divers and marine conservationists, who will undertake 12 clean up dives in caves and beaches on the South West coast where Ghost Gear is common. It will also fund the creation of a pioneering recycling network to collect and store end-of-life nets, as well as developing innovative new recycled products, such as kayaks, to create economic opportunities for coastal communities.

Around 640,000 tonnes of Ghost Gear is left in the ocean each year. The South West coast is a Ghost Gear hotspot, with ocean currents bringing lost fishing gear from as far away as the USA and Canada. The partnership will help reduce the maiming and killing of seals and other marine animals which are regularly entangled in lost nets and lines.

Members of Morrisons staff then helped out with a beach clean on Tregantle Beach in Cornwall, joined by Volunteers from B Company Devon Army Cadet Force

They collected around 50 bags of debris including Ghost Gear and other marine plastics